Measuring construction contractors' organizational learning

Abstract

The term 'learning organization' has entered the vocabulary of many managers and is providing an alternative basis for evaluating the performance of construction companies. However, there is a long way to go before organizational learning is fully implemented to gain competitive advantage, attain a state of readiness for change and build a capacity to respond and identify future business possibilities. This paper outlines the importance and the principles that underlie organizational learning, and presents a framework for measuring organizational learning as one of the strategies for improving construction business processes. The framework identi es ten dimensions for learning and eight factors that promote organizational generative learning. It provides a methodology for assessing whether organizational learning practices and the factors that induce organizational generative learning are in place and current best practice that characterizes learning organizations. The paper also outlines how a construction contractor can self/third-party audit its organizational learning, which could then act as a catalyst for implementing an organizational learning culture.L'expression 'organisation intelligente' fait désormais partie du vocabulaire de nombreux responsables et constitue une nouvelle base d'évaluation des performances des industriels de la construction. Mais on est encore loin du jour où l'apprentissage organisationnel sera généralisé et permettra d'acquérir un avantage compétitif, d'atteindre un niveau d'aptitude au changement et de construire une capacité permettant de repérer les futures possibilités commerciales et d'y répondre. Cette communication met l'accent sur l'importance et les principes sous-jacents à l'apprentissage organisationnel et propose un cadre dans lequel mesurer cet apprentissage en tant que stratégie d'amélioration des procédures de l'industrie de la construction. Ce cadre met en valeur dix dimensions pour l'apprentissage et huit facteurs qui favorisent l'apprentissage organisationnel génératif. Il offre une méthodologie qui devrait permettre d'évaluer si les pratiques d'appretissage organisationnel et les facteurs qui induisent l'apprentissage organisationnel génératif sont en place ainsi que les meilleures pratiques actuelles qui caractérisent l'organisation intelligente. Cette communication rappelle également comment un contractant du secteur industriel de la construction peut se contrô ler lui-même ou contrô ler des tiers en ce qui concerne l'apprentissage organisationnel, ce qui pourrait ensuite agir comme catalyseur dans la perspective de la mise en oeuvre d'une culture de l'apprentissage organisationnel.

The performance effect of organizational learning and market orientation

“…What little empirical research there is focuses on learning curves (Epple, Argote, & Devadas, 1991), knowledge codification (Kogut & Zander, 1993), the stocks and flows of knowledge (Bontis et al, 2002) or the organizational learning phases (Yahya & Goh, 2002). After reviewing this literature (Armstrong & Foley, 2003;Day, 1994a;Kululanga, Edum-Fotwe, & McCaffer, 2001;Schneider & Angelmar, 1993;Snell et al, 1996), and accepting the theoretical classification of Huber (1991) for organizational learning phases, we have used the organizational learning scale from the study of Pérez López, Montes Peón, and Vázquez Ordás (2004). The measures of these variables are displayed for every phase of organizational learning (see Table 1): knowledge acquisition (scale composite reliability ρ c SCR = 0.84, average variance extracted ρ c AVE = 0.64), information distribution (ρ c SCR = 0.78, ρ c AVE = 0.54), information interpretation (ρ c SCR = 0.77, ρ c AVE = 0.53) and organizational memory (ρ c SCR = 0.83, ρ c AVE = 0.62).…”

Volume building as competitive strategy

“…Instead, the industry has relied heavily on universities and governments for innovative ideas. Kululanga et al (2001) are also 'skeptical of the learning capabilities in the construction industry'. Pries et al (2004) also note that the top management of construction firms in the Netherlands were still mostly technically qualified in 2002, as it had been some 20 years before, and this was not conducive to organizational learning.…”

Securing the embeddedness of psychosocial diffusion indicators into the Turkish construction industry

“…In summary, within AEC it is widely acknowledged that there is a still a need to change. This includes a range of initiatives, from the need to develop an OL culture (Kululanga et al 2001), through to the need to fully understand the impact of psychosocial diffusion, functioning and well-being (Toor and Ofari, 2009;Goleman et al, 2013;Wheatley and Goulding, 2016;Leung et al, 2016).…”